This observation is not an isolated one. Whenever I am present at a funeral undertaken by a squad in which the males, zealous one and all, predominate, I find presently, when the burial is completed, only one couple in the mortuary cellar. After lending their assistance, the rest have discreetly retired.
These grave-diggers, in truth, are remarkable fathers. They have nothing of the happy-go-lucky paternal carelessness that is the general rule among insects, which pester the mother for a moment with their attentions and then leave her to care for the offspring! But those who would be idlers in the other castes here labour valiantly, now in the interest of their own family, now in that of another's, without distinction. If a couple is in difficulties, helpers arrive, attracted by the odour of carrion; anxious to serve a lady, they creep under the body, work at it with back and claw, bury it and then go their ways, leaving the master and mistress of the house to their happiness.
For some time longer these two manipulate the morsel in concert, stripping it of fur or feather, trussing it and allowing it to simmer to the grub's taste. When everything is in order, the couple go forth, dissolving their partnership; and each, following his fancy, begins again elsewhere, even if only as a mere auxiliary.
Twice and no oftener hitherto have I found the father preoccupied by the future of his sons and labouring in order to leave them rich: it happens with certain dung-workers and with the Necrophori, who bury dead bodies. Scavengers and undertakers both have exemplary morals. Who would look for virtue in such a quarter?
What follows—the larval existence and the metamorphosis—is a secondary and, for that matter, a familiar detail. It is a dry subject and I will deal with it briefly. At the end of May, I exhume a Brown Rat, buried by the grave-diggers a fortnight earlier. Transformed into a black, sticky mass, the horrible dish provides me with fifteen larvæ already, for the most part, of the normal size. A few adults, unquestionably connections of the brood, are also swarming amid the putrescence. The laying-time is over now and victuals are plentiful. Having nothing else to do, the foster-parents have sat down to the feast with the nurslings.
The undertakers are quick at rearing a family. It is at most a fortnight since the Rat was laid in the earth; and here already is a vigorous population on the verge of the metamorphosis. This precocity amazes me. It would seem as though carrion liquefaction, deadly to any other stomach, were in this case a food productive of special energy, which stimulates the organism and accelerates its growth, so that the fare may be consumed before its approaching conversion into mould. Living chemistry makes haste to outstrip the ultimate reactions of mineral chemistry.
White, naked, blind, possessing the customary attributes of life spent in the dark, the larva, with its tapering outline, is slightly reminiscent of the Ground-beetles'. The mandibles are black and powerful and make excellent dissecting-scissors. The limbs are short, but capable of a quick, toddling gait. The segments of the abdomen are clad on the upper surface in a narrow red plate, armed with four little spikes, whose office apparently is to furnish points of support when the larva quits the natal dwelling and dives into the soil, there to undergo the transformation. The thoracic segments are provided with wider plates, but unarmed.
The adults discovered in the company of their larval family, in this putrescence which was a Rat, are all abominably verminous. So shiny and neat in their attire, when at work under the first Moles of April, the Necrophori, when June approaches, become odious to look upon. A layer of parasites envelops them; insinuating itself into the joints, it forms an almost continuous crust. The insect presents a misshapen appearance under this overcoat of vermin, which my hair-pencil can hardly brush aside. Driven off the belly, the horde runs round the sufferer, perches on his back and refuses to let go.
I recognize the Beetle's Gamasus, the Tick who so often soils the ventral amethyst of our Geotrupes. No, life's prizes do not go to the useful. Necrophori and Geotrupes devote themselves to the general health; and these two corporations, so interesting in their hygienic functions, so remarkable for their domestic morals, fall victims to the vermin of poverty. Alas, of this discrepancy between the services rendered and the harshness of life there are many other examples outside the world of scavengers and undertakers!